Being good neighbours can bring us closer to God than being true believers. Whereas reaching out to others is often a path toward experiencing the divine, asserting one’s beliefs at all cost tends to make for intolerance and strife, and give religion a bad name.

The city of Bradford in northern England has had its share of intolerance and strife between Muslims and Jews. Some 25 per cent of the city’s half-million population is Muslim. Probably in a misguided effort to please them and perhaps for other cynical reasons, George Galloway, a local member of the British Parliament, has gained notoriety at home and abroad as an Israel-basher with a dose of anti-Semitism thrown in for good measure.

There have also been incidents of Jews being harassed by Muslims. That’s probably one of the reasons why most have moved elsewhere. As a result, the local Orthodox synagogue had to close down last year.

The Reform synagogue, a listed 19th-century Moorish building, was about to collapse, literally. The thought of losing one of the city’s landmarks that might drive out the remaining Jews prompted the leader of the local Council of Mosques, supported by Muslim business people, to launch a fundraising campaign that will save the building and enable Jews to have a place of worship.

The venture has also led to joint activities. Muslims and Jews, hitherto largely ignorant about each other despite living in proximity, are reported to have become friends. Knowledge of the other has led to mutual appreciation and respect.

In some countries, Jewish-Muslim joint actions usually come about only to protest against discriminatory measures by third parties. Thus joint representations by Muslim and Jewish leaders are currently being made to stop attempts in several European countries to prohibit ritual circumcision and ritual slaughter, both being essential to each religion. By contrast, the action in Bradford isn’t against anything but only for good relations.

There are, of course, other instances of Muslim-Jewish co-operation in the world. However, elsewhere it has tended to revolve around Holocaust education. Thus joint efforts are currently being made in Austria to learn about what happened in the Nazi period when the country’s Jewish population was reduced from 200,000 before the German takeover to 15,000 today. In recent years half-a-million Muslims have come to live there.

Similarly, in France, dozens of French imams have lately visited the Holocaust memorial in Drancy, from where some 65,000 Jews were deported to Nazi death camps. On that occasion, France’s minister of the interior stated that coming together to remember the victims “shows that dialogue, tolerance and the understanding of other religions is indispensable in fighting against anti-Semitism and fanaticism.”

On the other hand, the U.S.-based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding promotes good relations everywhere in the world far beyond alerting Muslims to the horrors of the Holocaust. The organization encourages communities throughout North America to strengthen ties between the two religions by arranging annual twinning events that enable Muslims and Jews to get to know each other as God’s creatures and to celebrate together significant events in each others’ religious calendar.

The Canadian Association of Jews and Muslims has been entrusted with organizing such events in this country. It has been particularly successful in the GTA. The sixth annual twinning weekend was held last November. The purpose, in the words of the organizers, was “to nurture ties of communication, reconciliation and co-operation between grassroots Muslims and Jews.”

Events of this kind are healthy antidotes to the many manifestations of religious fanaticism masquerading as piety that bedevil all traditions and often make people of faith ashamed of their co-religionists.

Dow Marmur is rabbi emeritus at Toronto's Holy Blossom Temple. His column appears every other week.